We Were Wanderers - Japan

"The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry"

Its been a while since I have had plans fall apart as grandly as my plans for our nude in nature shoots in Japan.  I have a few rules when shooting in foreign countries that influence how I select locations.  Locations must be remote, shouldn't have religious significance to the culture of where I am visiting so I do not disrespect the places I go, and won't have a negative impact on the environment.

It turns out finding a location that isn't significant to religion in Japan is very very hard.  On top of that many of the locations I researched that would have been okay as far as not disrespecting culture where very very public, or very very public and practically inaccessible.  

Originally I was planning on shooting Aokigahara, a forest off the northern side of Mount Fuji.  It has many of the things I look for in a location Ice Caves frozen year round, dense forest, volcanic forest floor, but it is known world wide as the Suicide Forest.  I think its a really unfortunate association with a forest that infinitely more Japanese people use for outdoor recreation and natural relief from the stress of life, but I also decided ultimately that the way I find locations was all too similar to the way many people wander off the path to end their life, and being an american abroad trying to express that the forest is more than what it is known for just felt wrong.

Instead I decided to take Nicole, Amber, Porcelain, and Henry to Kyoto to try and shoot in the bamboo forest and Mt Kurama.  Part of Mt Kurama is a sacred sight, but a large part of it is dense forest, twisted roots, and beautiful mountains.

When we arrived at the Kyoto Bamboo forest I realized pretty much immediately we wouldn't be shooting there.  There is only one path through the Bamboo Forest, it is paved, and there are hundred of people on it.  On top of that there is a very very large fence that makes the forest completely inaccessible and very nearly un-viewable.  Bamboo forest out.

With that failure weighing on me we spent the next day getting to Mt Kurama.  We took a cab from Kyoto to the main trail head.  We arrived at Kurama on an intensely rainy day only to find that the trail was closed past the temple because of some fallen trees.  Fortunately the trail connects to another town that was about 6 kilometers down the road.  So we decided to hike along the road in the rain to the next town so we could hike the other side of the trail to my planned shoot location.

It took a while.  Each place I thought the trail was going to start it turned out we had to go a couple kilometers further.  We hiked to the town, then up a mountain road, then through another town, when we finally arrived at the trail head to find the signs above.  Completely defeated we started hiking the long hike back to town.  In pretty much desperation we decided to hike straight up the mountain off the road and out of view to the only spot we had seen on our very very long walk where we managed to take these five photos (Link Below) as the sunset and the light left us.

I won't lie.  I was really disappointed in myself.  I felt like I let everybody down and led them on a wild goose chase across Japan.  I'm not used to coming back with so little to show for a trip.

Japan just didn't work out for We Were Wanderers.  Fortunately Porcelain and Henry had suggested shooting in a Love Hotel when we got back to Tokyo, and while I didn't think I would like it, turns out they are amazing, and I shot three sets of Amber, and one of Nicole while we were there.